]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/02/01/major-collision-reportedly-involving-dozens-of-vehicles-snarls-traffic-on-highway-401-for-second-week-in-a-row/feed/0stdEmergency crews and tow trucks work on clearing some of the approximately 50 vehicles involved in a chain reaction collision on the eastbound 401 highway near Ingersol, Ont., Friday.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave ChidleyTHE CANADIAN PRESS/Dave ChidleyMichael Rafferty clears hurdle to proceed with appeal in Tori Stafford murderhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/11/02/michael-rafferty-clears-hurdle-to-proceed-with-appeal-in-tori-stafford-murder/
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HandoutTori Stafford

TORONTO — Michael Rafferty has cleared a hurdle to proceed with an appeal of his murder conviction in the killing of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford.

Rafferty missed the deadline to file his notice of appeal, which is 30 days after sentencing, so he had to request a time extension.

The Court of Appeal for Ontario granted it Oct. 26, so he can now file a full appeal if he wants.

He has not filed any appeal documents beyond the inmate notice of appeal, filed in July, in which he says his conviction should be set aside and a new trial ordered.

Rafferty was convicted in May of kidnapping, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder in the death of Tori, from Woodstock, Ont.

On his notice of appeal written from Kingston Penitentiary where he is serving a life sentence, Rafferty says it was filed late because he wasn’t able to use the phone in time to speak to a lawyer about it.

There is no date for Rafferty’s appeal to be heard. Dates for appeals are not generally set until the appellant has filed all the proper documents.

Rafferty’s former girlfriend and accomplice in the killing, Terri-Lynne McClintic, is also serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

Evidence was that McClintic lured the Grade 3 student to Rafferty’s car. They then drove her to a secluded area where he raped her. One of them then smashed her head in with a hammer before burying her body under garbage bags and a pile of rocks.

To avoid prejudice to the accused, the judge did not allow the jury to hear evidence seized from Rafferty’s laptop, which included child pornography, torture videos and a movie about the abduction of a girl.

The woman serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of Tori Stafford is set to have a trial today on allegations she beat up another inmate.

Terri-Lynne McClintic, 22, will face a charge of assault causing bodily harm in Kitchener, Ont., at what is expected to be a one-day trial.

HandoutTori Stafford, 8, was abducted and brutally murdered in 2009.

McClintic pleaded guilty in 2010 to the first-degree murder of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, from Woodstock, Ont.

Sentences run concurrently in Canada, so even if she is found guilty her life sentence remains unchanged.

The charge stems from an incident in January at the Grand Valley Institution for Women in Kitchener, where McClintic is serving her life sentence.

McClintic testified at the trial of former boyfriend Michael Rafferty, who was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in Tori’s death, and mentioned assaulting someone in prison.

Under questioning from Rafferty’s lawyer McClintic said she had specifically asked to be connected to another inmate in a peer support program and beat her up.

“I confronted her about things that she had said about me,” McClintic testified at Rafferty’s trial.

“Things escalated and there ended up being an assault.”

McClintic agreed with Rafferty’s lawyer, who said the woman was on the ground in a fetal position while McClintic kicked her and stomped on her.

“I did assault her,” she said.

That is also how Tori was killed, though Rafferty’s trial heard conflicting evidence about whether he or McClintic dealt the fatal blows to Tori.

Related

McClintic’s lawyer on the assault causing bodily harm charge has said McClintic will not admit to the charge at trial.

Geoff Snow said in May that McClintic will plead not guilty.

Her testimony from the Rafferty trial cannot be used against her at the assault trial because she was compelled to give evidence at the hearing, he said.

McClintic lured Tori away from her school in Woodstock, Ont., at the end of the school day on April 8, 2009, with the promise of seeing a dog.

McClintic shoved Tori in Rafferty’s waiting car and the two of them drove about 130 kilometres north to a secluded field, where she was raped and brutally beaten to death.

She died from at least four blows to the head from a hammer and 16 of her ribs were broken or fractured.

The Crown alleges McClintic got into a fight with Aimee McIntyre, who is also serving a life sentence for first-degree murder in the death of her former lover, though a new trial was recently ordered.

McIntyre’s trial heard that she drove two men to her ex-boyfriend’s apartment, one of them stabbed him six times, then McIntyre drove the pair away from the scene, helped them dispose of the knife and helped wash their clothes.

The two men pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. McIntyre’s lawyer had argued that at most she was guilty of manslaughter.

In a decision released in May the Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled that the trial judge made several errors that mean she did not receive a fair trial. The court set aside her first-degree murder conviction and ordered a new trial.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/09/12/tori-stafford-killer-back-in-court-today-to-face-assault-charges/feed/0stdTerri-Lynne McClintic, convicted in the death of 8-year-old Woodstock, Ont., girl Victoria Stafford, is escorted into court in Kitchener, Ont., on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 for her trial in an assault on another inmate while in prison.Tori Stafford, 8, was abducted and brutally murdered in 2009. Woodstock, Ontario, police chief apologizes after cruiser caught on camera parked in handicap spothttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/01/woodstock-ontario-police-chief-apologizes-after-cruiser-caught-on-camera-parked-in-handicap-spot/
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WOODSTOCK, Ont. — Woodstock’s police chief is apologizing after a picture of a police cruiser parked in a handicap spot went viral.

The cruiser was parked in the reserved parking space at a truck stop Tuesday morning while the officer responded to an emergency call.

Two other police vehicles also parked in the lot, but quickly left after the call ended.

But the cruiser stopped in the handicap spot remained in place while the officer went inside for a meal.

The photo, taken by a London delivery man, quickly made a splash on Twitter and Facebook before landing on the radar of police Chief Rod Freeman.

Freeman says the officer received a verbal warning and will not be charged for the parking infraction.

LONDON, Ont. — A publication ban that prevented the public from knowing for more than seven months that Terri-Lynne McClintic had pleaded guilty to the murder of Victoria Stafford was decried at the time as a sweeping gag order.

HandoutTerri-Lynne McClintic pleaded guilty to the murder of Tori Stafford, but the public didn't know until the trial of Michael Rafferty began.

Front-page editorials lambasted Superior Court Judge Dougald McDermid’s decision to impose a temporary but total publication ban on the proceedings to protect the rights of eight-year-old Tori’s other accused killer, though they couldn’t say as much at the time.

A jury found Michael Rafferty guilty Friday of first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping in Tori’s death. All of the details from McClintic’s plea were heard at Rafferty’s trial, mostly when she took the stand as the Crown’s key witness, but the controversial publication ban only ended with Rafferty’s verdicts.

Particularly in high-profile cases, the courts must balance an accused’s right to a fair trial and freedom of the press. Now that the ban has been fully lifted, the details and arguments that went into it can be discussed.

Media lawyer Iain MacKinnon, who argued against the ban, said he still believes there would have been no impact on Rafferty’s fair trial rights if everything about McClintic’s plea was published. It all came out at Rafferty’s trial anyway, he argued, so where is the harm?

“A lot of judges and Crowns and defence lawyers say … ’It’s only temporary and it’s not forever and ultimately the public will know,’ but that’s just not good enough,” MacKinnon said Monday in an interview.

Juries are instructed to judge the case before them solely on the facts and without prejudice and some publication bans call into question the faith the justice system says it has in jurors, he said.

“So does it really make a difference, and does the jury need to be coddled so much that they can’t hear that information through media reports of her guilty plea a year (or two) ahead of time?” he said.

But the jury wasn’t necessarily going to hear everything McClintic pleaded to, Rafferty’s lawyer Dirk Derstine said. She changed her account at trial to say she was the one who physically killed Tori, and Derstine had argued to keep details of her earlier statements that Rafferty was the killer out of the trial.

“The trial’s a very dynamic process,” he said in an interview. “When you’re making tactical decisions years ahead of the trial, it’s pretty hard to say what this all would have meant at the trial.”

Part of the reason it was kept from the public for so long was that even when McDermid agreed to allow partial publication, Rafferty’s defence appealed it to the Supreme Court of Canada. It can take several months for the top court to decide if it will hear a case.

But it meant people were completely in the dark for more than seven months, which was “outrageous,” MacKinnon said.

“For that to sit in limbo for that long to allow the defence to seek leave from the Supreme Court was just far too extreme,” he said. “The problem is the appeal process has to play out. You can’t really deny somebody the right to appeal.”

Whether or not publication of McClintic’s plea hurt Rafferty’s right to a fair trial — although several jurors said during the selection process that they had never heard of the case before — is hard to know. But Derstine said it was not in his client’s interests, so he had a duty to fight it.

“It’s my job to sort of oppose it,” he said. “It’s not my job to balance it … I’m paid to be Mr. Rafferty’s advocate.”

The Canadian PressDefence lawyer Dirk Derstein speaks to the media after Michael Rafferty was found guilty on all three charges.

Derstine said he understands and applauds the news media for trying to preserve freedom of expression, though he does take issue with how some vilified McDermid over the decision.

“I understand the opposite argument, believe me I do,” he said. “If I was a member of the media I’d be jumping up and down and trying to get it moved away.”

To any observer it was clear that April 30, 2010, was no ordinary day at the courthouse in Woodstock, Ont. Having been given notice that a major development was to take place in McClintic’s case that might affect the interests of the press, members of the media flocked to Woodstock and parked television trucks all down the street.

There was a heavy police presence and everyone entering the courtroom was subject to metal detectors and pat-downs, which are not normally used at the small community’s old stone courthouse with a grand wooden staircase. Reporters, who are usually asked to turn off devices such as cellphones in courtrooms, were not allowed to bring them inside or use laptops or audio recorders for note taking.

An agreed statement of fact read out in court by a Crown attorney laid bare the horrifying and graphic details of what McClintic said was done to the little girl. Only a few dozen reporters, police officers, family members and lawyers were on hand that day to bear witness.

Following the plea, a barely audible statement from McClintic and victim impact statements from Tori’s family, Rafferty’s lawyer asked McDermid to impose a total publication ban on McClintic’s plea until a verdict was rendered in Rafferty’s trial.

McDermid said there was no time to hear arguments that day, asking lawyers to return May 18, and temporarily acceded to Derstine’s request until he could hear both sides.

Despite the significant developments in a case that had transfixed the country, reporters were not allowed to report anything except that McClintic had been “scheduled to appear.” McDermid scrawled the exact wording reporters were to use on a piece of paper. Bewildered reporters left the courthouse clutching photocopies.

Editorials slamming the decision appeared in newspapers the next day and one included a front-page photo of McDermid.

When court reconvened May 18, Derstine argued that if even the fact of McClintic’s plea was released it would prejudice a future jury pool, as men rarely play subordinate roles in murders and the actions of McClintic would be “inextricably linked” with Rafferty’s alleged actions well before his trial.

“It is difficult to imagine a series of crimes that would give rise to more extreme sentiments among the population,” he said. “The case that comes the closest in my submission is the (Paul) Bernardo case … But the child was not as young.”

MacKinnon, the media lawyer, argued that no detail of McClintic’s plea should be under a publication ban, saying that having the public unaware that a person is sitting in prison for life for first-degree murder “should not occur in a free and democratic society.”

The Crown suggested that only the facts pertaining to McClintic alone should be published. McDermid accepted that approach, ruling the following day that the media could essentially publish all the details of the plea except for those that referred directly or indirectly to Rafferty.

“The public has a right to know now that … there was no intention to conduct a secret hearing and a secret hearing was not held,” McDermid said in his ruling on May 19, 2010. “It is also important for the public to know there was no plea bargain.”

But Derstine said his client wanted to appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court, so the total publication ban was extended until the highest court’s ruling on whether Rafferty could pursue that appeal.

The Supreme Court declined to hear Derstine’s appeal, so on Dec. 9, 2010, media outlets could publish the facts from McClintic’s plea that McDermid had allowed. Her telling of how Tori was raped and killed was not publicly reported until she testified at Rafferty’s trial this year.

So was the ban worth it? Derstine said it’s impossible to know.

“It’s almost unable to be calculated, really,” he said. “What would have occurred if this thing that did not occur had occurred?”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/14/lawyers-weigh-impact-of-publication-ban-that-kept-terri-lynne-mcclintics-guilty-plea-a-secret/feed/0stdFront-page editorials lambasted Superior Court Judge Dougald McDermid’s decision to impose a temporary but total publication ban on the proceedings to protect the rights of eight-year-old Tori’s other accused killer, though they couldn’t say as much at the time.Terri-Lynne McClintic pleaded guilty to the murder of Tori Stafford, but the public didn't know until the trial of Michael Rafferty began. Defence lawyer Dirk Derstein speaks to the media after Michael Rafferty was found guilty on all three charges. Woodstock mayor says Michael Rafferty conviction allows city to ‘move forward’http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/12/woodstock-mayor-says-michael-rafferty-conviction-allows-city-to-move-forward/
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WOODSTOCK, Ont. — A troubled southwestern Ontario community scarred by the gruesome murder of eight-year-old Victoria Stafford can finally begin to heal now that both of the girl’s killers have been brought to justice, Woodstock officials said Saturday.

As news of Michael Rafferty’s conviction rippled through the city of roughly 40,000, Mayor Pat Sobeski said Friday’s verdict marked the first glimmer of hope for a community buried “under a cloud” of grief since Tori disappeared three years ago.

The jury’s decision, delivered at the end of the first full day of deliberations, brought the “emotional rollercoaster that so many people experienced over the past 36 months” to a satisfying, if not exactly joyful, close, he said.

While the shadow of Tori’s brutal killing may never be fully lifted, the little girl will remain an inspiration as the community grapples with rampant prescription drug abuse and other social issues brought to light during the investigation into her death, he said.

“We cannot ignore the challenges — like many communities, we have issues with drugs, we have issues with domestic violence — but we can seize the opportunities as the city moves forward and we can do so because of the inspiration of the innocence of Tori Stafford,” he said.

After 10 weeks of harrowing testimony and often graphic evidence, a jury in nearby London found Rafferty, 31, guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and sexual assault causing bodily harm.

The Crown contended that Rafferty instructed his then-girlfriend Terri-Lynne McClintic to snatch the child outside her school on April 8, 2009 and drove them both to a secluded rural area some 100 kilometres away.

It was there, McClintic testified during the trial, that Rafferty raped Tori and she was killed, wrapped in garbage bags and buried under a pile of rocks.

McClintic, who was a star witness for the Crown in her former lover’s trial, pleaded guilty two years ago to first-degree murder and is already serving a life sentence.

Now that Rafferty faces a similar fate — his sentencing is set for Tuesday — there is hope the community can move past what has been a particularly grim chapter in its history, Woodstock Police Chief Rod Freeman said Saturday.

“Our community is a good community, it’s a strong community, it’s a resilient community… it’s a community of people who are going to bounce back from this horrific incident and… we’re going to become a better community,” he said.

In the days after Tori went missing, residents rallied around her family, plastering the city and even their own clothes with posters in an attempt to find her. Those bonds only grew tighter as the investigation took a tragic turn.

But the case that captured national attention also placed the city under intense scrutiny, exposing widespread addiction to OxyContin beneath its picturesque surface.

‘Our community is a good community, it’s a strong community, it’s a resilient community… it’s a community of people who are going to bounce back’

The prescription painkiller emerged as a link between Tori’s killers and her mother, Tara McDonald, who admitted to buying the pills from McClintic’s mother on two occasions.

McDonald’s struggle with the heroin-like substance stirred speculation that drugs were the motive for her daughter’s abduction, a theory that was eventually disproved.

Both McClintic and Rafferty also abused painkillers. On the day they kidnapped and killed Tori, McClintic shot up OxyContin and both she and Rafferty took Percocet pills, she testified.

Since then, police have cracked down on the city’s drug culture, with “significant impact,” Freeman said. But he recognized the problem isn’t likely to fade completely.

Many who walked the streets of Woodstock Saturday said they felt a wave of relief that justice had finally been served. But they said it will take time to wash away the lingering anxiety and grief stirred by Tori’s death.

LONDON, Ont. — Michael Rafferty’s behaviour in the days and weeks following the death of Ontario schoolgirl Victoria (Tori) Stafford show that he was very much still in control, prosecutors in his high-profile trial said Wednesday.

During this time, he maintained regular contact with his ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, while she was in jail for another matter because he wanted to make sure she would not tell police about him.

“He had her where he wanted her — in the palm of his hand,” Crown attorney Kevin Gowdey told jurors in his closing statement.

Rafferty frequently called McClintic, including one phone call that was made immediately following an interview with police and visited her in jail on two separate occasions.

HandoutTori Stafford

He had to pretend she was still “the one” to him, like they were the next “Bonnie and Clyde,” said Gowdey.

Two years ago, McClintic pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Stafford’s death and was sentenced to life in prison. Stafford, a bubbly, blond eight-year-old, was last seen outside an elementary school in Woodstock, Ont., on April 8, 2009.

Her badly bludgeoned body was found on July 19, 2009, buried under a rock pile in a field near Mount Forest, Ont.,more than two hours north of where she was last seen. The little girl was found with a Hannah Montana T-shirt and no pants or underwear. Her remains had been wrapped in garbage bags.

Gowdey told the court that phone records for Rafferty, who was an obsessive BlackBerry user, showed on the evening Stafford disappeared, he had drove out of Woodstock to Guelph and then to Mount Forest — near where the girl’s body was found.

The records showed there were blackouts in his usage during the time McClintic says Stafford was allegedly raped and then killed.

Rafferty, wearing a dark grey suit, muttered under his breath and shook his head furiously during this suggestion by Gowdey.

On Tuesday, the Crown said the evidence points to Rafferty being the “leader of the operation” and the one who manipulated his younger girlfriend into luring Stafford for his sexual purposes.

“McClintic did not do this by herself,” he said. “Whatever the suggestion may be, she was, in the Crown’s submission, the violent pawn that Michael Rafferty used to make this happen for himself.”

Do not believe the defence’s suggestion that Rafferty was an “innocent dupe” who did not know he was participating in a kidnapping that would eventually lead to murder, said Gowdey.

McClintic, who testified for the Crown over a period of six days during this trial, told the court that she took the girl at Rafferty’s urging.

They then drove to pick up drugs and to purchase a hammer and garbage bags in Guelph, Ont., before stopping at a secluded clearing near Mount Forest, Ont.

There, she says, Stafford was repeatedly raped. After this, McClintic took a hammer and dealt at least four fatal blows to the girl’s skull. She was also kicked and stomped, leading to a cut on her liver before the couple buried her.

By the time investigators found Stafford more than three months later, her remains were too decomposed to warrant any evidence of a sexual assault.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/05/09/michael-rafferty-the-leader-of-the-operation-to-kidnap-kill-tori-stafford-crown-tells-court/feed/0stdTara-McDonaldTori StaffordTerri-Lynne McClintic and Michael RaffertyDecision to take the stand in his own defence lies with Michael Rafferty: lawyerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/30/decision-to-take-the-stand-in-his-own-defence-lies-with-michael-rafferty-lawyer/
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HandoutTori Stafford

LONDON, Ont. — Now that the Crown in the high-profile murder trial of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford has rest its case, the Ontario man who stands accused must decide Tuesday if he will testify on his own behalf.

Stafford was last seen outside Oliver Stephens Public School in Woodstock, Ont., a small city west of Toronto. Her decomposing remains were found on July 19, 2009 more than two hours away in a field near Mount Forest, Ont.

At the conclusion of eight weeks of prosecution witnesses and evidence last Thursday, presiding Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney reminded the nine-female, three-male jury the defence has “no onus to call evidence” in this case.

According to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the onus is on the Crown to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt because an accused is always presumed innocent.

Rafferty’s lawyer, Dirk Derstine, has not revealed whether his client will take the stand. Whether he does or does not will certainly alter the length and course of the proceedings, which began on March 5.

Prominent Toronto defence attorney Clayton Ruby said the decision ultimately rests with Rafferty, and not his lawyer.

“(A lawyer’s) job is analyzing the evidence that is already in and seeing whether there is anything you need that can only come from the client,” said Ruby, who has more than four decades of experience. “And whether it’s worth exposing him to cross-examination, with all its inevitable risks in order for the benefit.”

One of the major concerns about an accused testimony is whether or not the jury will like them.

“People reveal themselves. You get to like them or not like them,” he said. “People tend to acquit who they like and convict people who they do not like — that’s inherent in the jury system.”

The defence’s job will be to prepare their client at length to go over every possible question they may be asked by prosecutors during cross-examination.

The key is to ensure the accused will not be “surprised” about the “different attacks” the Crown may bring.

In this case, it may also include practicing answers that will not permit the Crown to question Rafferty on his “good character.”

“One of the things you prepare him for is to answer the question without doing that,” said Ruby. “It’s tricky.”

It would be rare for a defence team like Rafferty’s to not call any evidence, even though it is not required by law.

During their case, prosecutors called 61 witnesses, including Rafferty’s former girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic.

McClintic, 21, is currently serving a life sentence for Stafford’s death after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in April 2010.

She testified that she lured the child away from the school that day at Rafferty’s urging.

The three then drove out of the city in his 2003 Honda Civic to buy drugs, a hammer and garbage bags, before stopping at a rural field near Mount Forest, Ont.

There, McClintic says Stafford was repeatedly raped, which made her snap because it brought back memories of her own alleged childhood molestation. She then killed the girl and buried her in a nearby rock pile with Rafferty’s help.

Court also heard that Stafford’s DNA was later found in Rafferty’s car and on his gym bag.

His defence has tried to portray their client as a dupe who was a horrified spectator in the abduction and murder of the blonde-haired girl. They deny the girl had been raped, a fact that cannot be corroborated with DNA evidence because her remains had been so decomposed by the time she was found.

Stafford’s cause of death was multiple blows, most likely caused by a claw hammer.

LONDON, Ont. — The trial of a man charged in the abduction, sexual assault and death of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford resumes Wednesday with more evidence.

HandoutMichael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the disappearance of the Grade 3 student.

On Tuesday, the proceedings, now in their eighth week, were set aside to hear legal arguments. The content of those arguments is under an automatic publication ban until jurors begin their deliberations at the end of the trial.

Michael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the disappearance of the Grade 3 student.

Stafford was last seen with a woman outside her elementary school on April 8, 2009, in Woodstock Ont., just west of Toronto.

The girl’s remains were found on July 19, 2009, in a rural field near Mount Forest, Ont., about two hours away.

Rafferty’s ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, has admitted she lured the child for him. McClintic, 21, is currently serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree murder.

The little girl died from blunt force trauma, likely caused by multiple strikes with a hammer. She was most likely killed the same day she was kidnapped.

It’s expected the Crown will be nearing the end of its case in the coming days. The defence will then present its evidence.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/25/tori-stafford-murder-trial-now-in-its-eighth-week-resumes-with-more-evidence/feed/0stdTori Stafford was last seen with a woman outside her elementary school on April 8, 2009, in Woodstock Ont., just west of Toronto.Michael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to all charges related to the disappearance of the Grade 3 student.Tori Stafford trial hears that Michael Rafferty was familiar with area where body was foundhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/17/tori-stafford-trial-hears-that-michael-rafferty-was-familiar-with-area-where-body-was-found/
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LONDON, Ont. — A man charged in the abduction, sexual assault and death of Ontario schoolgirl Victoria (Tori) Stafford was “very upset” when police first questioned him in the eight-year-old’s disappearance, his murder trial heard Tuesday.

“He seemed to feel that the police were blaming him for taking Tori,” said Joy Woods, a mother of three who had began dating the accused in April 2009.

“I assured him that if he hadn’t — then he had nothing to worry about. He couldn’t figure out why they were blaming him.”

Michael Rafferty, 31, has pleaded not guilty to abduction, sexual assault causing bodily harm and first-degree murder. His high-profile trial is in its seventh week.

Stafford was last seen April 8, 2009 in Woodstock, Ont., a small city about 120 kilometres west of Toronto.

HandoutThis is a March 6, 2012 court handout of a photo taken of Victoria Stafford on April 7, 2009 at Oliver Stephen Public School.

Her battered body was found more than three months later wrapped in garbage bags under a rock pile near Mount Forest, Ont., nearly two hours away.

An autopsy concluded that the Grade 3 student had died from blunt force trauma to the head, most likely caused by multiple blows from a hammer.

In 2010, another woman who dated Rafferty pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Terri-Lynne McClintic, 21, is currently serving a life sentence for the killing.

Woods testified that she had tried to console Rafferty on May 16, 2009 — the day after two police officers showed up at his door to interview him about Stafford’s disappearance.

The 39-year-old said she had reassured him she had heard police were doing random door checks in their hometown about the missing girl.

Woods was the same woman who was with Rafferty three days later on May 19, when he was arrested for Stafford’s murder in the parking lot of a GoodLife Fitness gym in Woodstock.

At the time, she had no idea why he had been arrested, she told the court.

Woods was also taken to the police station, had her vehicle, which still had her children’s car seats in it, seized and had to turn over her laptop to investigators.

Like several other women who testified before her, Woods had met Rafferty online on the popular dating website, Plenty of Fish. The relationship began April 11, 2009 — just days after Stafford had disappeared.

He had told her he had a degree in kinesiology and culinary arts. At the time, he was working in construction and as a dancer teacher, she said.

Court handoutMichael Rafferty, undated, is seen here in two photos used during his trial for the murder of Tori Stafford.

Their relationship consisted mainly of going for dinners in Oakville and London, Ont. Rafferty also purchased clothing and gifts for her and her children, she said.

On the day he was interviewed by police, the two had gone shopping in the U.S. and Rafferty had been “adamant” about buying a pair of Puma sneakers but couldn’t find them, said Woods.

Court has heard earlier in the trial that Rafferty had allegedly given McClintic this brand of shoes to wear following the murder. Similar-looking shoes were eventually found in McClintic’s home.

Meanwhile, as search efforts for the young girl heightened in the small city of 35,000, Woods recalled speaking with Rafferty about Stafford.

She had told him she changed her Facebook profile picture to one of the little girl and vowed to not change it until the child was found.

“The first night we met, we talked about it,” she said. “He shared the same opinion as me and we both hoped that the person (who took Tori) was found.”

One time, Rafferty had mentioned to her that he went to a court appearance to support a woman, now believed to be McClintic.

“He was very concerned about her getting a better life,” said Woods.

The 12-person jury also heard from a number of other witnesses Tuesday who testified about Rafferty’s behaviour in the time between Stafford’s disappearance and his arrest.

Woodstock police Det.-Const. James Brady told the court he found records indicating that Rafferty had replaced his BlackBerry Curve phone on May 14, 2009 at a Bell Mobility store in London.

He was given a replacement cellphone five days later on the same day he was arrested.

Police eventually seized both phones but were unable to retrieve any data from the old cellphone.

Investigators also discovered that Rafferty had visited an auto wrecker on May 11, 2009.

That day, he had made two short phone calls to the business and later spent an hour at the London business, according to a log-in sheet.

At the time, police had suspected Rafferty had gone to the auto wrecker to inquire about purchasing a car seat but was unable to verify this theory.

Last week, court heard from a number of Rafferty’s neighbours who testified about seeing a car seat in front of Rafferty’s lawn following Stafford’s disappearance.

When his car was seized, the seat was missing and it has not been recovered.

McClintic had told the court Stafford was on the car seat when she was sexually assaulted.

She also testified that she had been the one who delivered the fatal blows but that the abduction had been Rafferty’s idea.

Postmedia News

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/17/tori-stafford-trial-hears-that-michael-rafferty-was-familiar-with-area-where-body-was-found/feed/0stdTori StaffordThis is a March 6, 2012 court handout of a photo taken of Victoria Stafford on April 7, 2009 at Oliver Stephen Public School.Michael Rafferty, undated, is seen here in two photos used during his trial for the murder of Tori Stafford. Coroner returns to stand for cross-examination in Tori Stafford murder trialhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/coroner-returns-to-stand-for-cross-examination-in-tori-stafford-murder-trial/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/coroner-returns-to-stand-for-cross-examination-in-tori-stafford-murder-trial/#commentsWed, 04 Apr 2012 14:19:58 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=158378

By Linda Nguyen

LONDON, Ont. — The forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy on Victoria (Tori) Stafford will face cross-examination Wednesday by lawyers representing the man charged in the young Ontario girl’s murder.

HandoutEight-year-old Woodstock schoolgirl Tori Stafford was found murdered in 2009.

On Tuesday, Dr. Michael Pollanen told jurors hearing the first-degree murder trial of Michael Rafferty that when he examined the eight-year-old’s remains in July 2009 — more than three months after she went missing — they were so decomposed it could not be determined whether she had suffered any sexual assault.

During his testimony, Pollanen showed the court a number of graphic autopsy photos of the child.

He explained she had been found in a fetal position only wearing a hooded Hannah Montana T-shirt with the words “A Girl Can Dream.” She didn’t have on any pants or underwear.

Examiners also found a pair of black butterfly earrings; two white water bottle caps and a fragment of a hair barrette in the bags containing her remains.

The autopsy showed that Tori had been struck at least four times with a claw hammer on the top of her skull, which is what killed her.

Bill Sandford for Postmedia NewsA reporter walks down the lane that leads to the area where Tori Stafford's body was found in 2009, stuffed in a garbage bag and buried under a pile of stones. The jury in the Michael Rafferty trial was brought from London to view the area so they could see how the evidence fits into the case.

The girl also had multiple facial fractures and at least two-thirds of her ribs were fractured on both sides of her chest likely caused by kicking and stomping. Tori also had a five-to-six centimetre long laceration on her liver, inflicted before she had died. Pollanen said death did not come immediate for the little girl.

It was an emotional day for Stafford’s family.

Her mother, Tara McDonald, could be seen crying, while her grandparents, aunt and uncle consoled each other as the photographs were shown.

The girl’s father, Rodney Stafford, left the courtroom with his girlfriend during the middle of the testimony.

Neither parent returned following the lunchtime break.

In 2010, McClintic pleaded guilty in Stafford’s death and is serving a life sentence.

She testified that she and Rafferty kidnapped the girl and had brought her to the rural field that day.

There, she alleges Rafferty repeatedly raped the little girl. Afterwards, McClintic fatally struck her multiple times with a hammer.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/coroner-returns-to-stand-for-cross-examination-in-tori-stafford-murder-trial/feed/0stdDr. Michael Pollanen, Chief Forensic Pathologist for Ontario, right, arrives at the courthouse in London, Ont. on Tuesday to testify in the trial of Michael Rafferty, the accused in the death of eight-year-old Woodstock schoolgirl Tori Stafford.Eight-year-old Tori Stafford. A reporter walks down the lane that leads to the area where Tori Stafford's body was found in 2009, stuffed in a garbage bag and buried under a pile of stones. The jury in the Michael Rafferty trial was brought from London to view the area so they could see how the evidence fits into the case. Christie Blatchford: ‘I’m not the only guilty party here,’ combative Terri-Lynne McClintic tells defence lawyerhttp://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/22/christie-blatchford-im-not-the-only-guilty-party-here-combative-terri-lynne-mcclintic-tells-defence-lawyer/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/22/christie-blatchford-im-not-the-only-guilty-party-here-combative-terri-lynne-mcclintic-tells-defence-lawyer/#commentsFri, 23 Mar 2012 00:25:30 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=72122

On Thursday, Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney and the jurors learned that the young woman who only very recently has confessed to killing Victoria (Tori) Stafford herself once attempted to point the finger of suspicion at the little girl’s mother and stepfather.

It came in a key May 19, 2009 interview Terri-Lynne McClintic had with Ontario Provincial Police Detective-Sergeant Jim Smyth.

The officer asked her to “play armchair detective” and offer her theory of “what you think has happened here.”

After some hemming and hawing, McClintic said she had heard that Tara McDonald, the little girl’s mother, had a large drug debt and said something equally vicious about Ms. McDonald’s boyfriend, James Goris.

Later on in the same interview, McClintic went on to admit for the first time that she was the mysterious woman in the white jacket seen on security video walking Tori away from her school and that she had lured the eight-year-old away and that Mr. Rafferty allegedly had sexually assaulted her.

That day, she stopped short of admitting she had seen a murder, and when she did, just five days later, she told Det. Smyth it was Mr. Rafferty who was the actual killer of the little girl, who allegedly had first kicked and stomped her before hitting her in the head with a hammer.

The revelation of her trying to blame Tori’s mother and Mr. Goris came during pointed cross-examination by Dirk Derstine, Mr. Rafferty’s lawyer.

McClintic denied she had been trying to implicate the pair, said she was merely repeating information Mr. Rafferty had told her and suggested this was part of her psychological inability at the time to admit that she could ever have been involved in such a thing.

While McClintic almost two years ago pleaded guilty to and was convicted of first-degree murder in Tori’s slaying, it was only in January this year that she belatedly confessed that she was the one who had kicked and hammered the little girl to death.

Consistent among her central statements is that she lured Tori away to a waiting Mr. Rafferty sitting nearby in his car; that Mr. Rafferty allegedly raped her, and that they both wrapped her body in garbage bags and tossed it onto a rock pile in the southwestern Ontario countryside: That, in other words, theirs was a joint enterprise.

Her stunning late-in-the-game admission came first on Jan. 13 to a prison counsellor, who told police, and on the next day, to detectives.

Facebook

As Mr. Derstine put it, if it took her almost three years to “finally come to accept that you were the one who killed Tori, when will you accept that you were the engine who drove the events of that day?”

“That will never happen,” McClintic snapped, “because it isn’t the truth.”

With frequent but vague references to a violent and abusive childhood — as a sampler, mother and daughter frequently “cooked up” OxyContin together, and her mother once allegedly burned her with a cigarette and McClintic punched her in the eye so seriously she lost 70% of her vision — McClintic claims to have developed a survivor’s ability to block things out.

As she put it once of the several times she spoke of it, usually tearfully, “I had pushed things out of my mind, I just couldn’t believe what had happened had happened. I just couldn’t believe I had been involved in something like that.

“I don’t deny I’ve been violent,” she said, “but I’m not violent towards children. I never hurt a child in my life, and to try to fathom and comprehend that a child has lost her life at my hands is something I could not comprehend.”

Her criminal record, serious and violent for such a young woman; her omnivorous appetite for drugs and the memory lapses caused by overdoses; her lengthy letters and diaries in which she raged and threatened to rain death on those who had wronged her — or their families — and detailed her lurid fantasies all gave Mr. Derstine plenty of ammunition.

She had to admit, she said once, that her writings were filled with “savage” imagery, but they were, for the most part she said, a way for her to work out her anger issues.

“You confessed under oath to beating a child to death with a hammer,” Mr. Derstine said. “It’s a little bit more than anger issues, wouldn’t you agree?”

FacebookA team of cyclists takes a break for a picture on their way to Niagara Falls, Ontario

After a long pause during which McClintic appeared to struggle for words, she finally said, “I agree that, I would say there were many things at play that day. I’m not going to make excuses, I’ll never make excuses for what happened, but things were more complicated than just me and my anger issues.”

Her several statements to police also provided rich fodder for Mr. Derstine.

He played for the jurors excerpts from her first videotaped interview, on April 12, 2009, just four days after the little girl had disappeared from view as if by black magic.

McClintic appeared relaxed, chatty and even sunny, in the interview, even when she was shown the infamous video of the white-jacketed woman. “Seeing a picture of yourself walking with Tori was not enough to break the block?” Mr. Derstine asked. As he remarked later of McClintic’s performance in another of the early interviews, when she was denying everything, “it all came out so naturally, it just flowed, as if it was the truth?”

“Yes,” McClintic admitted.

Toward the end of the day, as Mr. Derstine grew sarcastic, asking questions prefaced with a variant of, “So it’s not your fault then?”, McClintic gave as good as she got.

“I’m not saying that,” she said once. “I did what I did.

“But I’m not the only guilty party here, and that’s why I’m sitting here today.”

LONDON, Ont. — As Winston Churchill once said about Russia, the convicted killer Terri-Lynne McClintic may also be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

In the witness stand now at her ex-boyfriend Michael Rafferty’s trial, Ms. McClintic is a solemn, polite and well-spoken young woman with a shiny dark bob.

In letters she wrote from prison long before she met Mr. Rafferty, and which were put to her Wednesday in cross-examination by his lawyer Dirk Derstine, she was a hard and violent girl with an almost comic gangsta vocabulary (“I feel like a vampire in heat,” she once proclaimed), a penchant for calling herself and a friend “murderouz bitchez” and, as Mr. Derstine remarked, this in reference to her threatening other inmates, prison staff and their families, a desire to punish not only those who did her wrong but also “innocent persons attatched to those people.”

But the jurors at this trial now have another essential tool to use in their figuring out of the 21-year-old and what to make of her evidence — an hour-long excerpt of a lengthier videotaped police statement she gave on May 24, 2009, about six weeks after eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford disappeared on her way home from school in Woodstock, a southwestern Ontario town about a half-hour east of London.

The video excerpt was ruled admissible as “substantive evidence” by Ontario Superior Court Judge Thomas Heeney after prosecutors successfully made what’s called a “K.G.B.” application.

Oliver Stephen Public School photographLevon Helm, the 71-year-old musician who gained fame as drummer and vocalist for the iconic group The Band, is "in the final stages of his battle with cancer," his family said in a brief announcement Tuesday afternoon on Facebook.
Helm, who was born May 26, 1940, in Arkansas, joined Ronnie Hawkins' rockabilly band The Hawks just before they moved to Canada in the late 1950s.
[np-related]
In the early 1960s, Helm and Hawkins recruited Canadians Robbie Robertson (guitar), Rick Danko (bass) and pianist Richard Manuel and organist Garth Hudson. They left Hawkins and toured as Levon and the Hawks before backing Bob Dylan in the mid-60s. In recent years, Helm has hosted his famous Midnight Rambles in Woodstock, N.Y.
"Thank you fans and music lovers who have made his life so filled with joy and celebration," Tuesday's announcement, signed by his wife Sandy and daughter Amy. "He has loved nothing more than to play, to fill the room up with music, lay down the back beat, and make the people dance! He did it every time he took the stage."

The letters refer to the initials of a youth who was acquitted of stabbing to death a man after the witnesses against him, his friends, at trial recanted the incriminating statements they first had given police.

Because the common law rule then was that such statements, if recanted, were hearsay and couldn’t be used as evidence, the trial judge (who found the witnesses had lied to him) with great reluctance acquitted K.G.B., a decision upheld at the Ontario Court of Appeal.

But in 1993, the Supreme Court of Canada on a Crown appeal ordered a new trial and agreed the old rule should be changed. Now, so long as a judge finds they are necessary and reliable, such “prior inconsistent statements” are evidence as good, or bad, as testimony given in court.

Judge Heeney told the jurors just that on Wednesday, before they watched the videotape of Ms. McClintic’s confession: They can accept everything she said in that interview, some of it, or none of it, just “as you may with her oral testimony.”

Ms. McClintic, who pleaded guilty almost two years ago to first-degree murder in Tori’s slaying, is the prosecution’s key witness here.

And here, she has insisted that she was the little girl’s killer, the person who not only lured her to a waiting car but also stood by as Mr. Rafferty allegedly raped her and then abruptly snapped, kicked and stomped Tori and grabbed the hammer she’d purchased about an hour earlier and struck her in the head, killing her.

Court handout

But in her May 24 statement to Ontario Provincial Police Detective-Sergeant Jim Smyth, Ms. McClintic gave devastating evidence against her then-boyfriend.

After carefully explaining her rights to her and making sure she was talking to him voluntarily, Det.-Sgt. Smyth told her that while she’d gone some distance in her first police statement a few days earlier — she’d been arrested on a probation warrant for another charge, a stabbing — she now had to talk about the actual murder.

“You saw it,” he said softly. “You know you saw it. We need to talk about it.”

Ms. McClintic, wrapped in what appeared to be a blanket, was sobbing and blowing her nose almost constantly.

Much of what she said that day has already been reported since the trial began, but none of it was as powerful as this — Ms. McClintic weeping as she described Tori calling her name, begging her for help.

She had, she told the detective, just taken the little girl for a bathroom break at Mr. Rafferty’s direction; the pair had driven deep into the countryside, with the car parked off a laneway, near a rock pile.

Pantless, the little girl was bleeding from the sexual attack.

“She was good, she was great,” she told Det.-Sgt. Smyth tearfully. “She wasn’t scared of me.” She led her by the hand to the front of the car, where Tori relieved herself, leaving blood in the snow.

“I wanted to take her away from him,” she said, “but I don’t know why … I couldn’t, I couldn’t.”

Dutifully, Ms. McClintic returned Tori to Mr. Rafferty, who was sitting in the rear passenger seat, naked below the waist, legs dangling out the open door, for a second round of assault.

Her descriptions — “I turned her back over to Mike” and “I gave her back to Mike” — were wrenching, especially when, under the detective’s questioning, she agreed the little girl was on his lap, and that he “turned her around maybe a couple of times.”

It meant that when she looked back at the car — several times, she said she couldn’t “bear to look” for very long — Ms. McClintic would have on some occasions been able to see the little blonde’s face.

Though the jurors don’t have to determine who actually killed Tori in order to reach a verdict here, one question remains, not fully answered either by Ms. McClintic in the witness box or in the May 24 video: Why on Earth would she have bothered to lie about which of them was the killer when by both accounts, she surely sunk herself, and so seriously implicated Mr. Rafferty?

LONDON, Ont. — Terri-Lynne McClintic had called herself a murderer on several occasions in the year leading up to the abduction and killing of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford, an Ontario court heard Wednesday.

During the first day of cross-examination by the defence, a number of letters written by McClintic to another female inmate were shown to the court.

In them, she had referred to herself and the inmate, whose identity is protected under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, as “murderouz b—–“ and “real mu’f—– G’s.”

The handwritten letters were written throughout 2008 while McClintic was serving a sentence at a youth facility on an unrelated matter.

HandoutTori Stafford was last seen on April 8, 2009, in Woodstock, Ont., a small city located about two hours west of Toronto.

In them, she talked about physically harming other inmates, doing drugs and living a gangster lifestyle. The letters were also peppered with three point crowns, the symbol of the violent Los Angeles-based Crips street gang.

McClintic, 21, is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree murder two years ago in Stafford’s death.

She is the Crown’s star witness and has been testifying against her ex-boyfriend, Michael Thomas Rafferty, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping the Grade 3 student.

Defence lawyer Dirk Derstine repeatedly asked McClintic Wednesday whether she thought of herself as a gang member and whether this was her reputation while in custody.

She remained defensive during his questioning but eventually admitted that she was, in his words, a “toughie on the range.”

“I had build a reputation for myself, yes,” she said.

McClintic told the court she took prescription drugs while in custody and often took other inmates’ drugs.

In one of the letters, she had talked about shooting a pregnant inmate in the face. In another, she said she wanted to “take out” another inmate’s family when she got out of the youth detention centre.

“I may have meant at that time what I was saying,” she testified. “I was younger at the time and this was years ago.”

She was seen crying in the nearly hour-long excerpt as she talked to OPP Det.-Sgt. Jim Smyth at the Woodstock, Ont. police station on May 24, 2009 — more than a month after she was arrested.

Alex Tavshunsky/National PostMichael Rafferty has pleaded not guilty to murder.

In the video, McClintic describes to Smyth the details surrounding how Tori was killed. She tells the detective that Rafferty, 31, was the one who wielded the hammer to deliver the multiple fatal blows to Tori’s skull.

Last week, while on the stand, McClintic contradicted this confession, saying she lied to Smyth that day because she couldn’t admit she was the one who killed Tori.

McClintic is largely inaudible in the video and is constantly blowing her nose.

While the video was played, Rafferty, who was dressed in a grey suit and blue stripped tie, scowled and closed his eyes from his seat in the prisoner’s box.

In instructions to the 12-member jury, Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney told them he had ruled that they could use this videotaped confession as evidence in this trial.

Normally, inconsistent statements are only admitted in proceedings for jurors to assess the credibility of witnesses.

He reminded them that even though this was evidence, it was still up to them to determine the value of this video.

“The video statement is not sworn testimony,” said Heeney. “It is an interview with a police officer.”

Tori was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock.

Her remains were found three months later in a rural field north of Guelph, nearly two hours away.

She had been buried in garbage bags and was found with a Hannah Montana T-shirt and a pair of butterfly earrings.

An autopsy determined she died from multiple blunt force trauma and was killed the same day she disappeared.

LONDON, Ont. — Jurors in the murder trial of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford were shown a police interrogation video Wednesday where Terri-Lynne McClintic confesses details in the killing of the little girl.

HandoutTori Stafford was killed the same day she disappeared in 2009.

McClintic, 21, is seen crying in the nearly hour-long excerpt as she talks to OPP Det.-Sgt. Jim Smyth at the Woodstock Police Station on May 24, 2009 — more than a month after she was arrested.

McClintic — who was in the courtroom to watch the video — is currently serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to first-degree murder two years ago.

McClintic is the Crown’s star witness and has been testifying against her ex-boyfriend, Michael Thomas Rafferty, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, sexual assault causing bodily harm and kidnapping the Grade 3 student.

In the video, McClintic describes to Smyth the details surrounding how Tori was killed. She tells the detective that Rafferty, 31, was the one who wielded the hammer to deliver the multiple fatal blows to Tori’s skull.

Last week, while on the stand, McClintic contradicted this confession, saying she lied to Smyth that day because she couldn’t admit she was the one who killed Tori.

McClintic is largely inaudible in the video and is constantly blowing her nose.

While the video was played, Rafferty, who was dressed in a grey suit and blue stripped tie, scowled and closed his eyes from his seat in the prisoner’s box.

Earlier, Ontario Superior Justice Thomas Heeney told the 12-member jury he has ruled that they could use this videotaped confession as evidence in this trial. Normally, inconsistent statements are only admitted in proceedings for jurors to assess the credibility of witnesses.

He reminded them that it is up to them as jurors to determine the value of this video.

“The video statement is not sworn testimony,” said Heeney. “It is an interview with a police officer.”

The Crown was expected to question McClintic on her statements in the video later Wednesday.

Tori was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock, Ont.

Her remains were found three months later in a rural field north of Guelph, nearly two hours away.

She had been buried in garbage bags and was found with a Hannah Montana T-shirt and a pair of butterfly earrings.

An autopsy determined she died from multiple blunt force trauma and was killed the same day she disappeared.

LONDON, Ont. — Terri-Lynne McClintic will resume testimony Wednesday in the trial of her former boyfriend, who is charged with first-degree murder in the death of eight-year-old Victoria (Tori) Stafford.

Jurors in the case got the day off Tuesday so lawyers could discuss a number of legal issues, which are under a publication ban.

HandoutTori was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock, Ont.

McClintic, 21, is currently serving a life sentence after confessing to killing the Grade 3 student two years ago.

She began her testimony last week as the Crown’s star witness against Michael Thomas Rafferty.

McClintic told the court that she killed Tori by striking her in the head with a hammer after watching the girl be raped. This evidence contradicted what she told police when she was first arrested — that Rafferty had been the one who wielded the hammer to deliver the fatal blows.

McClintic said she was high on prescription pills when she lured Tori with the promise of meeting a puppy. She alleges the kidnapping was Rafferty’s idea but admitted in emotional testimony that she didn’t try to get help during the number of times she was left alone with the little girl before her death.

Tori was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock, Ont.

Her remains were found three months later in a rural field north of Guelph, nearly two hours away.

She had been buried in garbage bags and was found with a Hannah Montana T-shirt and a pair of butterfly earrings.

An autopsy determined she died from multiple blunt force trauma and was killed the same day she disappeared.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/03/21/tori-stafford-killer-terri-lynne-mcclintic-to-resume-testimony-in-court-on-wednesday/feed/0stdTerri-Lynne McClintic confessed to being high on drugs when she lured Tori Stafford in 2009.Tori was last seen on April 8, 2009, outside her school in Woodstock, Ont.Occupy movement hits the skids thanks to guns, drugs and urinehttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/11/occupy-movement-hits-the-skids-thanks-to-guns-drugs-and-urine/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/11/occupy-movement-hits-the-skids-thanks-to-guns-drugs-and-urine/#commentsFri, 11 Nov 2011 17:05:10 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=57292

The Summer of Love, 2011 version, isn’t coming to a happy end, it would seem.

Occupy Wall Street, and its various offshoots, was meant to spread the message of fairness, co-operation, social equality, environmental responsibility and the elimination of greed, particularly the corporate variety. I’m not sure what living in tents was supposed to signify, but presumably some sort of Woodstockian back-to-the-land, in which peace, love, harmony and spiritual revival are achieved via rejection of the crass materialism of the modern world.

It doesn’t appear to be working out.

Burlington, Vermont: The city closed half of City Hall Park and put a halt to all camping at the Occupy Burlington site Thursday night while police investigate a shooting in a tent that cost a 35-year-old man his life. Meanwhile, the movement’s participants mourned a member of their community and planned the future of the encampment.

Just a day after the joyful spontaneity of a Gogol Bordello performance Wednesday night at City Hall Park, Thursday’s shooting that police believe may have been self-inflicted spiraled into a tense confrontation between Burlington police and some protesters over access to the park.

Oakland, California: A man was shot to death on Thursday near a downtown Oakland plaza where hundreds of anti-Wall Street activists have camped out for a month, stoking renewed calls by some city officials to evict the protesters.

A preliminary investigation into the gunfire suggests it resulted from a fight between two groups of men at or near the Occupy Oakland camp on a plaza in front of City Hall, police Chief Howard Jordan said.

Investigators do not yet know if the men in the fight were associated with Occupy Oakland, but they are looking into reports that some protest participants tried to break up the altercation, Jordan added. It was the city’s 101st homicide this year.

Oakland, California: Police arrested more than 100 demonstrators early on Thursday in clashes that activists and Oakland city officials alike blamed on agitators who provoked unrest following a day of mostly peaceful rallies against economic inequality.

New Orleans: A 53-year-old man was found dead Tuesday inside a tent pitched at the Occupy New Orleans encampment at Duncan Plaza across from City Hall. He appears to have been living in the tent inside the occupation zone, said John Gagliano, chief investigator for the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office. The man appears to have been dead for at least two days, Gagliano said.

Victoria, B.C.: An Occupy Victoria protester who has moved his demonstration into a tree is being accused of pouring a two-litre bottle of urine onto the head of a city worker. Lyle Barrette climbed into a homemade hammock atop the tree near Centennial Square on Monday, claiming that he had enough food and supplies to last 50 days.

Barrette allegedly dumped the bottle of urine Tuesday morning as a city worker was hoisted in a bucket to remove the protester’s bicycle, which was dangling from a branch and had been declared a safety hazard.

The liquid splashed the worker’s face, head and upper body. Barrette claims the substance was apple juice, not urine.

Toronto, Ont. : There are signs of growing tension between Occupy Toronto protesters and residents and business owners near the encampment in St. James Park. Things reached a boiling point Thursday outside a business overlooking the park at King Street East and Church Street, where protesters have been camping since Oct. 15.

Residents and business owners discussed the camp at a meeting, which also drew some Occupy Toronto protesters. “I don’t want you there, you’re ruining the neighbourhood,” one resident shouted.

“I’m telling you that I live upstairs and I can’t sleep because you guys are so loud,” another said.

Patrick McMurray, owner of the Starfish Oyster Bed and Grill on Adelaide Street East, said local business owners have seen a sharp drop in revenue since protesters moved in. “There’s fire’s going on, there’s open drugs and drinking, they’re living in a park, which I believe is illegal,” he told CBC News. “You’re allowed to protest any time you want to, you just can’t live in a park.”

It’s all well and good to preach self-righteously about greed and the failings if society, but guns, drugs, all-night drumming and urine baths don’t seem to strike many as a reliable alternative to the status quo, flawed as it may be.

National Post

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/11/occupy-movement-hits-the-skids-thanks-to-guns-drugs-and-urine/feed/0stdOaklandRoy Green: You can get anything you want at the Occupy Wall Street restauranthttp://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/13/roy-green-you-can-get-anything-you-want-at-the-occupy-wall-street-restaurant/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/10/13/roy-green-you-can-get-anything-you-want-at-the-occupy-wall-street-restaurant/#commentsThu, 13 Oct 2011 12:07:23 +0000http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/?p=53803

I tried. Really tried. To understand the Occupy Wall Street tour wobbling across North America.

I listened to interviewers attempting to elicit a cogent explanation for OWS from participants. It wasn’t easy. Perhaps media types just chose the more entertaining clips for their broadcasts?

I played back the clip featuring a guy who quit his job to attend OWS in New York. Yep, he was complaining about a lack of employment. He seemed, though, to be motivated by a sense of caring.

I ran into this guy, well his father probably, in the 60’s. Dad would have been wearing flowered shirts, tie dye and singing “If you’re going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” (thank you Scott MacKenzie) or “Timothy Leary’s dead, oh no he’s outside looking in” (thank you Moody Blues). Dad would have been relatively harmless. A guy looking to score some weed and bum a ride to place called Woodstock, maybe.

I saw some union folks marching around New York shouting slogans. The ones I saw first were nurses. Hard not to like nurses. They do the really heavy lifting in medicine and are vastly underpaid and maybe even underappreciated. My wife is a nurse.

The union presence at OWS pointed also to a spot on the compass far removed from Max Yasgur’s old cow patch where Jimi Hendrix and Santana hammered their axes like we’d never heard before. I didn’t hear a six string wailing the Star Spangled Banner. I heard Teamsters president James Hoffa Jr. bellowing his “Let’s take these Sons of Bitches out” Labour Day warning to the Tea Party and in the presence of U.S. President Barack Obama.

Michael Moore stumping for OWS hardly matters. Moore is yesterday’s news. Even Iran throwing its support behind OWS is merely mildly amusing. That Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket is a crack up. When he’s not killing his own citizenry.

Look, most of us get it. Times have been hard. Work, particularly in the U.S. is difficult to find. Corporate decisions saw thousands upon thousands of jobs exported overseas and taxpayer billions fixed the hole in the bucket for “too big to fail” institutions. Many, if not most of us were opposed to the massive bailouts.

It’s the OWS mantra that 1% of the population has all the wealth, while 99% are downtrodden which lacks focus.

Most wealthy people work hard for their money. This includes the entrepreneurs who build businesses, create employment and take all the risks. They earn their eventual reward. They are not oppressors. They are contributors.

Jury selection in the trial of a man accused in the 2009 kidnapping and killing of eight-year-old Tori Stafford will begin Feb. 27, 2012.

Tori was last seen walking home alone from school on April 9, 2009, in Woodstock, Ont., a small city located west of Toronto. The remains of the third-grader were found three months later under a rock pile more than 100 kilometres away from her home.

Michael Rafferty, 30, faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of abduction for Stafford’s disappearance.

The jury pool was expected to be more than 1,000 people, the accused’s lawyer, Dirk Derstine, said on Wednesday.

A number of pre-trial motions will be heard for four weeks in London, Ont., starting Jan. 16. A publication ban has been placed on the content of the arguments.

Last year,Mr. Rafferty’s ex-girlfriend, Terri-Lynne McClintic, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the little girl’s death and was sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment.

McClintic confessed to purchasing garbage bags and a hammer the day Tori had disappeared and that she had lured the girl by promising to show her a puppy.

Mr. Rafferty’s trial is expected to draw international media attention when it gets underway in the new year. It was moved from Woodstock to nearby London because it was argued that Mr. Rafferty, a local resident, would not be able to get a fair trial in the hometown he shared with the murdered girl.